The Age of the 5th Race
by hamburger73
Summary: After a long and devastating war with the Ori, General O'Neill is ordered by the IOA to evacuate all surviving SG personnel, along with the surviving alien allies, to a new colony with Atlantis.
1. Journey into disaster

The Age of the 5th Race

by Hamburger73 and SilverInk

Summary: After a long and devastating war with the Ori, General O'Neill is ordered by the IOA to evacuate all surviving SG personnel, along with the surviving alien allies, to a new colony with Atlantis.

This is my first fanfiction story. Without the help of my beta, SilverInk, I wouldn't be able to publish this story without her. So I thank her for her support.

Disclaimer

All rights of the mentioned TV series belong to the TV studios that produce them. I own unfortunately only the idea for the scenario.

* * *

1\. Journey into disaster

25.06.2010 Pacific, Earth

It was a nice summer morning here in the middle of the Pacific on Atlantis. O'Neill was lost in thoughts as he was sitting in the meeting room waiting for the others to arrive. It would be the last meeting before Atlantis would have to start to this new journey.

So much had happened since they went through the Stargate for the first time so many years ago. Not everything was bad but not everything was good either. He had lost count of all the people they had lost all those years. There were the obvious like General Hammond, Bra'tac, Dr Frasier, Vala who sacrificed herself when she killed her daughter Adria. And then there were so much more, not all of them were soldiers. There were quite lot civilians as well, like scientist and so on. Jack really hoped that someday all the people who had died would receive the honors they had earned themselves.

O'Neill wasn't really happy with the fact that the IOA had ordered him to evacuate all of the SGC members with Atlantis to a new colony world. Somehow it didn't feel right to him. Ok, it was a legitimate order but still, it felt to him as he had lost a serious battle. He couldn't tell anybody why he felt this way since he had received this order almost 3 months ago.

* * *

Flashback

30.03.2010 Washington DC

Homeworld Command

O'Neill wasn't happy at the moment, as always when he had a meeting with politicians. And the next meeting, which should take place here in a few minutes, was 1 of the meetings he would have loved to miss. Unfortunately that wasn't very wise, especially when you have to deal with the IOA.

O'Neill knew, that the three delegates of the IOA where already in the building. He wondered what they wanted this time. Not that it was important, which it wasn't normally. It seems that the job of the IOA was, to make the job for O'Neill and the SGC as hard as possible. Especially since Woolsey had died in the Pegassus Galaxy. He missed him. It had been such an unnecessary death in the end and it was in the end easy to work with him.

There are not many people who once worked for the NID, then the IOA and in the end commanded Atlantis. He was a respected commander who was able to achieve a lot in the Pegassus Galaxy.

Minutes later James Coolidge, Jean Lapierre and Shen Xiaoyi entered the meeting room and took a seat.

As soon as O'Neill came into the room and also took a seat, he asked:"What can Homeworld Command do for you today Gentlemen? We are currently in the last stages of our preparations for the expedition to the Pegassus Galaxy, to finally defeat the Wraith."

"That is good to know, but I'm afraid, there will be no expedition to the Pegassus Galaxy." answered Mr Coolidge.

"What is going on here? Could you please explain that to me?" demanded O'Neill to know.

"It's quite simple, after a very long discussion, the IOA has decided, that currently we don't want to have more military engagements with the Wraiths. The IOA and all of its member states have at the time a lot more problems that must be solved first. And one of the biggest problems, that we still have, is that the Stargate and everything else is still not disclosed. We simply don't have an idea, how to disclose all of that, without having several uprising and wars on our hands." explained Jean Lapierre.

"And what does this all mean for Homeworld Command and the SGC, if I may ask?"

"You may ask, that is the reason, why we are here in the end. General O'Neill after a very long discussion the IOA came to the conclusion, that the wisest decision would be, if you and your men would be evacuated to a new colony world." said Shen Xiaoyi.

"What, you can't be serious!"

"No, that is no joke. General O'Neill you are hereby ordered to evacuate all personnel of Homeworld Command and the SGC with the help of Atlantis and our 5 remaining space ships to a new world, where you will found a new colony." ordered Mr Coolidge.

"But that makes no sense at all. That is a huge mistake that you are making here."

"We don't think so. General do you remember what happened when the Ori attacked the first time with the plague? About 3.000 people died worldwide, that time. That were already quite a lot, and it wasn't easy to keep the Stargate secret. Do you how many soldiers we have lost only against the Ori? That dam war lasted only from 2005 – 2009. We had more than 50.000 casualties. But that was topped by the second bio attack of the Ori in 2008. That time we had to suffer almost 100.000.000 people. How do you expect, to explain all these deaths to the world General O'Neill? How many more deadly training accidents will there be?" wanted Mr Lapierre to know.

"If any of you think I don't care about all the dead people, you're wrong. And you, too, should be aware that even if we hadn't gone to Abydos then, the Goa'uld probably would have attacked us by now. I admit that this is only a well-founded assumption, but it is currently supported by many clues. So you want SGC to practically close, but why should we start a new colony on another planet, that seems a little odd to me."

"Well you could say that your men pose another problem for us. Please don't misunderstand us here now. Everyone in the SGC and Homeworld Command served honorably and did extraordinary work, most of which went far beyond the demands of service. We all know this and it is recognized by everyone."

"So what is then the problem with us Mr Coolidge."

"Have you taken a look in the mirror recently? You were born in 1952, yet you look like you were only around 30. And you are not the only one. All your subordinates are affected. They will all have a life expectancy of at least 200 - 300 years, as it currently looks. General, do you think this won't be noticed at some point as long as we can't go public with the Stargate project? And should any of your subordinates ever die or end up in a hospital and by any chance be examined by a physician. Some inconsistencies certainly would be noticed. Your age is one thing, but your perfect health is another. Likewise that nanites in your body support your immune system, or that your brain is used to about 80%.And I don't think I need to mention that they're all telepaths either. All these things, if discovered, would cause considerable problems for all of us." explained Ms Xiaoyi.

"Although I can understand these explanations, I can't accept them, because it's simply wrong to abandon my men. They fought for you all, they suffered and many of them were wounded or were killed. Because they are inconvenient for you, you send them away. And what happens, if you need us, do you expect, that they all will come willingly to die for you again?"

General O'Neill never would have guessed that this meeting with the IOA would become that emotional. He also would have never expected to be betrayed by the IOA and the other world leaders.

"And what will happen to the IOA?"

"A new foundation is already founded in San Diego that will be the cover for the IOA. With the foundation we will work secretly, to make a disclosure possible. Then we will contact you and inform you that you can come back. We expect that it will take at least 10 probably 20 years, before that can happen. So the majority of your subordinates will be able to see the Earth again, before they will die."

Jack couldn't believe what he had heard so far. It was like was having a very bad dream. The problem was, he wasn't sleeping. He vowed to himself to try everything to make sure, that these orders were taken back.

End of Flashback

* * *

15 minutes later he was sitting in this meeting room with the others and his mood was still not a little bit better. The others knew about his feelings, but that wasn't difficult either because all of them felt the same way. They all felt neglected and thrown aside and that after what they had to suffer and sacrifice. It wasn't fair. But that was their order.

Among the persons with him in the meeting room, were Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter, Dr. McKay, Helia and Anise /Freya. Anise was now a queen for the remaining Tok'ra. And they were desperately needed, especially since the Ori had manipulated the Tretonin. That had been a devastating blow for the Jaffa. Many went on suicide missions by themselves. Only a small group had in the end accepted that they would need Goa'uld larvae again to survive. The fact that it would be the larvae of the Tok'ta made it a little bit easier to for the Jaffa to accept it at the time. By now only around 5.000 Jaffa and only 237 Tok'ra were left. The Tok'ra didn't serve as undercover agents anymore. Because of the simple fact, that they were more or less useless against the ORI as undercover agents. So nowadays they served as healers, psychiatrist and scientist for the so called Ta'uri alliance. And they were all on Atlantis.

"Jack."

"Yes, Daniel?"

"I'm afraid, it's time for us to leave. Look, we are all not happy with the order, but maybe it's for the best off all. We have to remember that the Stargate still isn't disclosed to the public, there is the fact, that we have all received genetic treatments, and we are all Telepaths now."

"Hmm, is everything on board now, as we speak?"

"Yes, all of the 679.573 people who should be on Atlantis are here." replied Anise.

Helia then confirmed, the Tria, Daedalus, Odyssey, Gen. Hammond and Prince of Wales had landed on the pier. Although it was quite crowded now at that the pier, but it was alright. All 128 F-302 Fighters were on board of the battle cruisers. And all the jumpers were either on board the Tria or on Atlantis.

"All the warehouses on Atlantis were completely full with all kinds of spare parts, weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, medicine and food. We also have enough seeds for all crops to feed at least 10 times as many people as we really need. Really General O'Neill, I wish we had that many supplies when we went to Atlantis the first time." reported Dr. McKay.

"Well Jack, as far as I know, all the books, movies, TV series, songs and so on, that we know of, have been uploaded into the databanks of Atlantis." told Daniel. It was an important project in the eyes of Daniel, to make sure, that they were able to preserve parts of their culture, they were born into. Daniel and several others expect that there will be mixture of the different cultures in the new colony. It would be almost impossible to prevent something like this to happen, if you have to deal with the survivors of several dozen different cultures.

From Daniels point of view it was necessary to save all this knowledge, because it was unknown when they would be able to return to Earth if ever.

O'Neill then looked everyone in the room in the eye and all of them gave him an approving look.

"OK, it really seems as we have everything that we need is here and everybody is on board. Carter please go to the control room and contact the IOA. Tell them that we will be leaving Earth in 5 minutes. And Sheppard you go to the control chair and take us out of here."

After everybody left the room for their posts, O'Neill waited a short moment before going to the control room. He knew, like all the others on board the ships and Atlantis, that it would be a farewell for a very long time, probably for ever.

The IOA was quite pleased to hear that Atlantis finally left Earth, the members of the council thought that way they had to deal with several problems less.

O'Neill's had always liked to visit the control room on Atlantis, especially since the Asgard core was also located here on Atlantis. Sometimes he spoke with his old friend Thor here in this room. Ok it was only Thor's consciousness, but in the end it was better than nothing Jack thought.

Meanwhile, Sheppard had taken a seat in the control chair. Every time he sat there, it was always special to feel all the power of the city. Even more now that Atlantis had 3 fully charged ZPM's. He briefly went through the pre-flight check - all systems of the city-ship were green. After John confirmed to Control that everything was fine, he received the command to lunch the ship.

Sheppard started the engines and slowly at first, Atlantis began to ascend. He didn't fly the city ship very fast, because there was no need for it. The cloak was activated since the ship was in the traffic in the air and on the ocean.

With a steady speed of 0.9 Mach and 2 g acceleration, Atlantis reached an altitude of 100,000 feet in 5 minutes. John deliberately didn't fly any faster to avoid a sonic boom. This changed when Atlantis finally reached orbit.

First he accelerated to Mach 5, afterwards further accelerated to over Mach 35. With this speed Atlantis flew towards the moon, to finally activate the hyperdrive. Although Atlantis could have flown 3.000.000 light-years within an hour, they were only flying with a speed of almost 20.000 light-years per hour.

They were about 50,000 light years away from Earth when suddenly Colonel Sheppard started losing control of the city-ship. In the end it got so bad, that the Colonel had to take Atlantis out of hyperspace.

Obviously, O'Neill wasn't very pleased with this incident. But when he asked Carter and McKay, they were only able to tell him they didn't know what had happened. Nobody knew that, while they were searching for the reason for the current problem, the real disaster was happening behind their backs

Nobody had an idea that when they had saved all the various books, movies and so on, that they would also upload a very dangerous virus. It waited passively in the database. When a certain distance to Earth was reached, the program was activated. This initially led to Atlantis no longer being able to continue flying in hyperspace. But then about 10 minutes later, another subroutine was activated. And so the stasis capsules on board of Atlantis were activated, only with the small difference that the stasis field completely enveloped Atlantis.

And so Atlantis now drifted towards an unknown planet. Many centuries were to pass before the city ship could finally be rediscovered by chance.


	2. Revenge is a dish best served cold

The Age of the 5th Race

by Hamburger73 and SilverInk

All rights of the mentioned TV series belong to the TV studios that produce them. I own unfortunately only the idea of the scenario.

First of all, I would like to thank all our readers. When I published the story I had never expected that so many would read it.

To all who are impatient to read new chapters of this story, first of all, I also know this impatience. But both my beta and I still have a life. And everything I write I send several times to my beta before I finally release it. I guess it will usually take about 1 - 2 months until I can publish a new chapter.

Marisares: I use the available information from the episodes and mainly from German wiki pages. Especially the one for BSG2003 is much more extensive than the English page.

It was never mentioned in the series how big Atlantis or the Tria is. It may be that I missed it, but I don't believe it at the moment.

But there are clues about the size of Atlantis. Dr. Rodney McKay stated that "It would be like searching every room in every building in Manhattan" to search the entire city. And McKay is not a character in Stargate who tends to exaggerate.

We know the size of the Daedalus Battle cruisers. It has the following dimensions 335 x 192 x 68m for length, width and height. If you look at the size of the Daedalus on the pier of Atlantis, it seems to be a bit small. That would mean that Atlantis has to be much bigger than the 5 km I found several times in the internet. Therefore, I really believe that the size of Atlantis is approximately the same as that of Manhattan. This would mean that the diameter of Atlantis would be about 24 - 25 km.

Now to the size of the Aurora-class ship. If you compare the few pictures where a Daedalus cruiser and an Aurora-class ship can be seen at the same time, it seems unlikely that an Aurora is longer than 500m. I may be wrong, of course, but I will use these values now anyway.

* * *

2\. Revenge is a dish best served cold

25.06.2010 Honolulu, Earth

Finally this day had arrived. He couldn't believe his luck. Today his patience would finally pay off and his revenge would begin. Today the Ta'uri would begin to pay for what they had done to the Goa'uld. They would pay for every single dead Goa'uld and then they would start paying for what they did to him personally.

Looking back, the damn Ta'uri had been responsible for a hell of a lot since they killed Ra on the planet Abydos. They killed so many Goa'uld, first and foremost the System Lords as Apophis, Heru'ur, Sokar, Seth, Hathor, Niirti, Anubis and so many others. Of course he would have had to kill some of them himself in order to put his long-term plan into practice and take over the power.

And then there were the damn Tok'ra, who had been a constant nuisance to the Goa'uld System Lords for a very long time. And not to mention those damn traitorous Jaffa. This bloody Jaffa rebellion was also only the fault of the Ta'uri and the traitor Teal'c. Without their help, no Jaffa would have dared to betray their god.

Then, of course, there were the many small needlesticks against the Goa'uld Empire. And finally the priors came and with them the armies of the Ori. The cruelty of the Ori was equal to that of the Goa'uld, he had to grant them that. But the Goa'uld mostly left others alive when the losers still had some use. That didn't interest the Ori and the priors at all. They demanded submission to their religion – the only alternative was death. But even that was ultimately only the fault of the Ta'uri. If they had not discovered these communication stones, the Ori would never have been contacted by them.

Oh how he had amused himself when he had learned that the Ori had made the tretonin permanently unusable for the Jaffa. What he had not expected that Helia would then find a way in the research archives of Atlantis to turn a normal symbiote into a queen. Nor that the Jaffa would readily accept Tok'ra symbionts, at least those who had survived so far. But at least the surviving Tok'ra and Jaffa had been eliminated as power factors.

And then there was the improved Ori plague. SG 1 was on his heels on Earth and he had to seek refuge in another body. That he couldn't leave this host body because of this plague was also the fault of the Ta'uri, in this case SG 1 again. He hadn't known that this person had already been infected. Well he was then healed later just in time, but by the plague and the cure, he had changed and he lost the ability to leave his host. He had tried it often enough and failed every time.

At least that body wasn't completely useless. No, you really couldn't say that, not if it was the body of a member of the IOA Council. And so he finally decided that the Ta'uri would pay for what they done to him. Of course, he knew that as long as SGC existed on Earth, he would hardly have a chance to implement his plan. It was hopeless to see this facility disbanded. For that the SGC simply had too many supporters from too many countries. So he had to try something else, which would have the same effect.

And so he gradually convinced everyone in the council that to protect the civilian population it was necessary to evacuate all survivors of the SGC to a new colony, due to the fact that all veterans of the SGC were now telepaths.

And the simplest and most effective protection would be if the veterans lived in another world. O'Neill really had tried to convince the council members to the contrary, but in the end he had had no chance. More than 2/3 of the members just wanted the veterans to leave. OK Ba'al himself also had his share in it by making sure that the telepaths were feared. The rest after that was easy.

When he saw on the screen that Atlantis was taking off, he raised his glass with whiskey, took a little sip and threw it against the wall. "Have a nice trip, O'Neill. You lose and I win." Ba'al started to laugh.

Now all he had to do was make sure that the rest of the Ta'uri would suffer. Perhaps the simplest way would be a world war with nuclear weapons. But whatever he would do, he would make sure that as many Ta'uri as possible would perish.

* * *

28.06.2010 Washington DC

IOA Council

It was late at night and Ba'al was alone in his office. He enjoyed this evening very much because recently it was official, the contact to Atlantis was broken off and no one knew why.

For Ba'al, it was just amusing. All the council members sat together and debated why the contact had been broken and who was responsible for it. Maybe instead of continuing with his plans, he should wait and see what happened next.

However, one thing was clear to Ba'al in any case, these council members were not the sharpest tool in the shed. One could have called these people idiots and was still very reserved and indulgent.

Wasn't it clear to these idiots that the earth didn't have its own Stargate anymore and that no own spaceships could reach the Atlantis.

Maybe he should just let these idiots live, they would at least find it hard to prevent his plans.

And if all the other people were then dead, he could still show his gratitude to the other members of the council and kill them all by himself.


	3. Happiness in disguise?

The 5th Race and the 3rd Age

by Hamburger73 and SilverInk

Disclaimer

All rights of the mentioned TV series belong to the TV studios that produce them. I own unfortunately only the idea of the scenario.

Predator1701: Thank you for this information. I have found the size of the Daedalus-class on the German Stargate-Wiki. Because of your review, I started another research for the size of that ship-class. And you won't believe it, but I found again something different. On the page Stargate Fandom com (it is in English), the size is 200 – 225 Meter x 90 – 95 Meter x 70 – 75 Meter (Length x Width x Heigth).

According to this size, the information comes from Stargate SG1: The DVD Collection. And they are supposed to follow the canon. It is interesting, because according to them the different ships of the Daedalus-class have different sizes.

So what shall I do now? I have decided that if I can't find the information in the German Wiki, I will search for it on the English pages. And if I still can't find anything, I will have to guess.

I have also decided for myself that I will only change the story again if there are serious deviations. The size of the ships like the Daedalus class is not serious for me.

I'd like to apologize to everyone who thinks this is a serious problem.

But it would be nice if all the readers would ignore these little things, and just read on with the story to the end.

I can promise all readers that there will be some interesting entanglements in the story in later chapters.

A simple "and then they lived happily ever after", will definitely not happen.

* * *

3\. Happiness in disguise?

unknown date unknown system

Admiral Adama wasn't a lucky man these days. Not really. Not after what he had had to endure during the last 4 years. To say that it had been hell was a nice and friendly way to describe the situation for him and all the other surviving colonials in the fleet.

The most important officers and politicians were currently together with him in the briefing room of the Galactica, everybody was devastated. The fleet was out of resources and wouldn't be able to jump any further, as long as they did not finally carry out the urgently needed and completely overdue repairs and maintenance work on the ships in the fleet. But even then, some ships would probably not be able to continue their voyage.

His old ship the Galactica was one of these ships which wouldn't be able to travel any further. She was already a wreck. And the condition of the Pegasus and 3 Baseships of the Rebellcylons was only slightly better. Since the Battle of New Caprica, the Pegasus had been a shadow of itself. Due to the serious damage during the battle, among other things the entire armament had either been destroyed or there was no ammunition left, the Pegasus now served primarily as a military hospital and training ship. The damaged military ships would probably be able to jump 5 times more but that would be it. Then 157 civilian spaceships would not be able to last very long without their protectors.

The Cylons had only recently joined the fleet. And their arrival had not exactly triggered storms of enthusiasm, on the contrary. Of course, this really couldn't surprise anyone, not after what happened. It would probably also be a little too much for the surviving people in the fleet to forget the attack on the colonies with over 30 billion dead or the occupation of New Caprica. And whether the survivors would ever forgive the Cylons, which was now a question that was very difficult to answer. At the very least nobody would forget it.

This proved to be a problem when the food supplies that the Cylons had brought with them were to be distributed in the fleet, even though the rations had just had to be cut again shortly before. The only way to solve this was for the Cylons to deliver the supplies to Galactica and Pegassus, and from there the food was distributed to the rest of the ships.

Even then it was difficult with some, especially the more fanatical followers of Tom Zarek. They propagated that the Cylons only wanted to buy themselves free from their guilt. And of course they did not leave it unmentioned to say that anyone would betray the dead in the colonies and on New Caprica if they accepted these goods. Fortunately, in the end only very few people were really willing to do without the extra food. It's hard to argue with people like that when they're really hungry.

Another blessing was that the Cylons also brought uniforms, especially space suits. None had been produced since the fall of the colonies. It burdened Admiral Adama that he had to send some pilots in vipers or raptors into action without a proper space suit. Many of these pilots did not survive their first mission. As soon as the encapsulation of the cockpit of the craft was hit, the pilot was as good as dead.

That wasn't the worst part of the situation. There was still Cavil, who obviously knew exactly where Earth was. D'anna and Natalie had already confirmed that whenever the Cylon fleet had lost the colonials, Cavil had given them the direction where they should search. And a short time later they had found the colonials again and again. But Cavil had never told the other models where he got his information from. He would certainly attack soon. He still had a pretty impressive force of over 25 base ships. Cavil would certainly not give them the time they needed to carry out the repairs and perhaps produce some ammunition. Unfortunately, ammunition had become a scarce commodity in the fleet. It did not matter whether it was ammunition for the Vipers or for the large warships. If the Cylons finally came with their fleet, there would be a massacre. Not that this would have been the very first in this long war against the Cylons.

Yesterday they had finally discovered Earth in this solar system, only to discover that it had been a radioactively contaminated wasteland for many centuries. OK, they had found out that the 13th tribe consisted only of Cylons. But unfortunately that was all they had found out here.

Currently, only the people in this room knew what was really going on. But that was no reassurance, neither for Admiral Adama nor for anyone else. There would either be a mass panic or an uprising if the people learned the truth about the Earth and the fleet. Adama really wished, when he slowly looked at the faces of the others, that the situation would be a lot different after all. As he looked around, he realized that the members of the Quorum in particular were close to losing their heads.

Okay, Adama could understand this behavior. But that didn't mean that he would call it good, not that it would help them in any way. There were about 420,000 people in this fleet and he prayed that he would soon come up with a solution. After all, it was his responsibility to ensure the safety of everyone in the fleet.

In this moment a call from the CIC could be heard on the loudspeaker. Adama went to the panel and answered the call. " _Actual here_."

" _Sir, we have something on Dradi_ s." said the slightly worried voice of Lt. Gaeta.

" _Alright Mr Geata, send the CAP out to investigate. We will be there in a minute_."

Adama knew quite well, that it would be useless in this kind of situation to leave all the others behind in this room. Especially the members of the Quorum, but at lea they interpreted his gaze correctly – not to be in the way and to behave calmly.

As soon as the Admiral had entered the CIC, he asked: "Sitrep?"

"Sir the unknown appeared a few minutes ago at the edge of our Dradis range. Who or whatever that is, it is either flying very slowly or it's drifting. We haven't tried to make contact yet. The CAP should have visual contact with the unknown in a few minutes. Kat is leading the CAP. Racetrack and Skulls are supporting them."

"Ok" with these words Adama took the mic. _"Kat, Racetrack, this is Galactica actual. Can you identify the unknown ship or at least confirm that it's not a cylon baseship?"_

" _Negative so far, Galactica."_ Both of them answered. _"Sir, from my position I can tell, that this ship is definitely huge. It is at least 10 times larger than the Pegasus. And it really seams as it's only drifting in space"_ added Racetrack.

"Admiral that makes no sense." said D'anna Biers, one of the leaders of the Rebelcylons. "The colony might be large and a lot bigger than all the other ships that we have in this fleet, but she is not that big. So who ever that is, I don't think, that it's from Cavil's fleet."

"D'anna is right, Admiral. It doesn't look like it's coming from Cavil." confirmed Natalie Faust, another leader of the cylon rebels. "Fantastic and then who should have built it, the Lords of Kobol?" Colonel Tigh interjected questioningly with his cynical voice.

"Sometimes you have to roll a hard six." Adama said more to himself than to anybody else. Suddenly he had a strange feeling. It was almost as if someone was talking to him and urging him to fly to this unknown spaceship. But there was no one right next to him at that moment. So why did he now only have the impression that he would make a huge mistake if he didn't went there now?

When he looked some of the others in the eyes like Tom Zarek, Laura Roslin, Sarah Porter, D'anna Biers or Leoben Conoy, he recognized in their faces that they all felt the urge pull of this unkown spaceship as fast as possible. He didn't know how, still he knew that this was the truth. And he was also very curious about this ship or whatever that was. He only hoped that they would not make a mistake with this "excursion", especially a mistake that could not be corrected again.

"Ok, everybody up for a little trip?"

At first they looked at Adama very unbelievingly, but then everyone realized that this was something they had to do together. Meanwhile, the Admiral ordered the helmsman to change course and fly towards the unknown ship. The rest of the fleet would be holding position. Soon several Raptors and 2 Heavy raiders left the Galactica.

The closer they came, the more impressive the unknown object became. Nobody had ever seen anything so big in space. While some marveled silently, others mumbled again and again "Unbelievable".

Something was wrong with the unknown spaceship, Athena thought. "Admiral Adama?"

"Yes what is it Athena?" "Well something tell is telling me that we approach the unknown from the underside Sir. I will change the course so that we will come from the other side." "Yes please, and inform the others to stay close to us."

Due to the change of course it still took about 30 minutes until they could really see the object from the other side. "But this is an entire city. Helo, do you already have data about the size of this thing?"

"Admiral, I can tell you this city ship is really damn big. The diameter is about 24 km horizontally while the vertical diameter is about 840 meters."

No one who had heard the dimensions of this "city ship" could really believe it. Who had built this city in space and why? So far anybody had not been able to make radio contact with the spaceship. Were there people on board? And if there were, were they still alive?

"Could anybody explain to me, why this ship seams to glow in orange?" President Roslin wanted to know.

"No, I'm afraid, I can't answer that question." Helo answered. "According to the scanners, there is only this flying city. It could be a shield of some kind, but we won't get our answer here in space only on board that city-ship."

"A shield? I think your imagination is running away with you," Colonel Tigh replied.

"Well, can you explain what this could be otherwise?" Helo replied. Colonel Tigh left this answer with an angry look, but otherwise unrequited.

"Admiral, look over there. Can you see it? There are spaceships parked." mentioned Athena. Her eyes, due to the fact that she was a Cylon, were able to spot these objects much earlier.

"Ok that is interesting; please fly right past the spaceships Athena. Circle quietly a little above them. Can you see how many spaceships there are?" The Admiral wanted to know.

"Well, I can make out a total of five spaceships there. 4 of them seem to be identical to me. Helo can you tell us anything else?"

"Unfortunately our scanners aren't able to catch anything here. As you can all see, the four smaller space ships look like a small version of our Battlestars. But the biggest surprise here is, since we entered this "shield", there is an atmosphere."

"Ok, Athena find us a nice place, as close as possible to the center of this thing, were we can land. I guess we have to do rest the old fashioned way."

"Yes Admiral, I have discovered a good place where we can land all our ships." replied Athena.

Soon after the ships had been landed, and everybody has disembarked the small crafts, at first they all everyone admired the view. It was simply unimaginable how incredibly huge this city ship was. It must have taken years to build it, if not decades or even centuries. Admiral Adama knew that if such a spaceship had been produced in the colonies, it would have taken ages and probably would have used up all resources.

"What now?" Laura Roslin asked. "Where should we go now?"

"I guess we'll probably find most of the answers in one of those towers," said Dr. Baltar.

Some, like President Roslin, slightly spoiled their faces at that answer. Why did they take him with them again, ah yes, he was a nuisance and unfortunately the only capable scientist they had left. Everyone knew this, but unfortunately Dr. Baltar too.

"Well, we might as well try our luck with the Central Tower; I don't think it'd be so good if we split up." Lee Adama said.

"Why? What are you afraid of? Do you think there are ghosts here?" Starbuck teased him.

"Quiet, that goes for everyone. As long as we don't know for sure that we are alone on board and that there is no danger for anyone, nobody will walk alone. Is that understood?" the Admiral wanted to know. All members of his "travel group" agreed with Adama after a short moment of hesitation.

And so they all finally went on. This group also included 4 Centurions and a squad of Marines to protect everyone. The majority of them all went silent and they were all still very impressed by this city ship. They needed about 20 minutes on foot to reach the central tower. As they walked around the tower, they finally found a door. When Lee Adama, who was a little ahead, approached the door to examine, it suddenly opened as if by magic.

This unsettled everyone for a short moment, but they were too curious to finally getting answers. So they all entered the door. Suddenly they all heard a loud voice, "Freeze."


	4. A rude awakening

The Age of the 5th Race

by Hamburger73 and SilverInk

Disclaimer

All rights of the mentioned TV series belong to the TV studios that produce them. I own unfortunately only the idea of the scenario.

Some readers told me in reviews that a few facts do not seem quite logical to them. I can basically say that many of the questions you have on this regard will be answered at least partially in the next chapters. I can also say that I try to give at least some hints on the questions you might have in the text.

It would be nice not to have always the same complaints about the different sizes of the space ships.

I'm sorry, actually the 4th chapter should have been published a bit earlier, but there were some unpredictable problems. I wish all readers lots of fun reading this chapter.

* * *

4\. A rude awakening

unknown date unknown system

Atlantis 2 hours earlier

They all fell to the ground as soon as the stasis field was automatically shut down. Thankfully nobody was injured because of that, but it was still a painful experience for most people in Atlantis.

"Carter, McKay what happened?" asked O'Neill.

"I'm sorry General, but currently we simply don't know," Carter told O'Neill while McKay could only shake his head "No".

O'Neill wasn't happy to receive that kind of answer. "Great, make sure that we get answers and we need them 5 minutes ago, get back to work again," said a very annoyed General. He now hoped very much that no more problems would arise when he stepped at a window and looked outside. Atlantis looked a little strange, he found. Probably it looked that way because not all the lights were on properly.

A little while later, Helia joined General O'Neill at the window. She said, "Jack, would you come to the briefing room, please? The geniuses seem to have found something."

"That's good. Hopefully they will be able to give us some answers," Jack said. "What is the overall situation like?" the General wanted to know from Helia.

"Well, people have suffered injuries all over Atlantis and the ships. As it now appears, some of them are also seriously injured. The Tok'ra are all busy treating and healing the injured," reported Helia.

"At least we have no deaths to mourn," said a relieved Jack O'Neill.

So he went to the meeting room together with Helia. On their way, they met Dr. Weir who joined them.

And so, about half an hour after everyone on Atlantis had come out of stasis so rudely, the entire technical department around Carter, McKay, Zelenka and Rush came together with O'Neill, Helia and Dr. Weir.

"So you've found any answers for us yet?" the General wanted to know right away.

Carter and McKay first looked at each other, then the others from their department. Finally Colonel Carter began to speak, also because she knew that nobody had a special inclination to talk to the General at the moment.

"Well, as we suspected, somebody put a virus in the pre-departure data download. This virus only became active after we had flown in hyperspace for a while. When we came out of hyperspace, we were probably between 30,000 and 60,000 light years away from Earth. And shortly thereafter the stasis units were activated only with the difference that this time the stasis field surrounded all of Atlantis. Since then, Atlantis has been drifting through space at a speed still unknown to us. The only systems that currently function absolutely correctly are the shield and the life support systems; otherwise we would be dead already. It seems that the sensors picked up something that got us woken up from stasis, but we're not sure about that," Colonel Carter reported.

"And of course it's not clear how long we've been in stasis, is it, Sam?" asked Helia, who was very worried about this report. In fact, the Atlantis protection systems should have prevented such manipulation. Oh how often had she had had to argue with McKay or Dr Rush, because they really intended to combine so many Atlantis systems either with other technologies, be it from the Asgard or the Earth, or just, as Helia saw it, mess around with Atlantis' proven systems. She still knew very well how she and her crew had been surprised by the Asurans just because McKay had to play around. She understood it on a logical level, but that didn't mean that she had already forgotten this episode. After all, that's why she and her crew had almost been killed. But her dear husband, she swore to herself, would definitely hear from her tonight before they went to bed. Well, nobody could have guessed this, but he wanted to have all books, movies, songs and so on as a data backup here on Atlantis.

"No, we don't know that either right now, Helia." confirmed Sam, who also saw that she was pretty upset. Sam could understand that well in the end. If some of her colleagues had never played around with Atlantis' systems, things would have been different in the past. It was as if someone was receiving a gift, and the first thing that someone did was break it.

"So we could be in enemy space and we could be attacked at any time?" clarified Jack.

"Yeah, that's right, Jack," was the unpleasant answer he received from Sam.

"How long will it take you to get all the systems back up and running and online?" an equally shocked Elizabeth Weir asked.

"We're not quite sure, but we suspect we'll need another 4 to 6 hours or so to get everything back on track."

"That's bad. Ok, this is an Alamo scenario. That means nobody stays alone. Nobody is unarmed. And all important areas are to be protected by additional security forces. All SG teams are deployed in the central tower. The crews of the spaceships will defend their respective spaceships."

"Okay, General," McKay replied.

"See to it that the sensors and weapon systems are up and running as quickly as possible."

It had been about 90 minutes since the meeting. Jack O'Neill was in his office when Sam came to him.

"So, Sam, how far along are you with the systems?"

"Jack, we've already achieved a great deal. The sensors are coming back online right now, as is the internal communication, but the external communication will probably take another quarter of an hour. I'm positive the weapon systems will be operational in thirty minutes, unfortunately the propulsion systems are expected to need half an hour more time." Sam was very proud that she could report already so fast these. It had looked a lot worse at first.

"How come it takes so much less time than you said?"

"Now that we had determined that it was effectively a malicious program, we searched the databases. The virus had been present in several video files. But it did not spread any further. We were able to rule that out. At present we are currently restarting the different systems one by one after we had initiated a total shut down. Each system is booted individually and it is checked if it really works as it should," said Colonel Carter.

"But why could this even happen? Shouldn't the Atlantis firewall actually prevent such schemes?" asked a visibly reassured Jack O'Neill.

"Yes, normally that would have happened, but the many different systems we have here on Atlantis have connected like the Asgard core memory and our databases. But all of them are not very compatible with each other, so we had to program an interface to bypass these problems," the Colonel explained to her superior.

"McKay was responsible for this project, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Yeah, that's right, Jack, we're gonna have another look at the interface later. It may well be that someone has manipulated there as well."

"Sam stop it, only IOA had the means and the opportunity to do this," O'Neill made it clear.

"Yeah, Jack, you're certainly right, but why the hell would they do that? Why should they betray us? Do you think McKay helped them?"

"Nah, McKay would never betray us willingly. He's far too loyal to all of us to betray us. If the IOA had a traitor among us who is still among us now, we will find the person sooner or later, I am very optimistic. And when we find the person, this traitor will have a very bad day, I can guarantee you that. But Sam, do you really think that's still important why the IOA betrayed us? Think about it, how long did we drift in space? How likely is it that in the meantime many years have passed on earth and that the people who betrayed us have all long since died?"

"You have thought about this mess we are in now for a while, haven't you? Did you also think about our other problem?" she asked him, suddenly out of the blue, with an odd look on her face.

He didn't need to ask her, what the other problem was, it had been their nemesis, and that for many years. But they' would be able to finally solve this problem if Sam didn't get "cold feet" first.

"Sam since our ungentle wake-up service I have thought about our situation here and then Helia came to it and added her 5 cents. Our top priority at the moment is now to get all Atlantis and the ships' systems up and running again, then we'll find a place to start over. After that we can still figure out what to do about the betrayal and the earth in general. By the way Sweetheart, what do you think of the idea of getting married?"

They were both aware that they had just started to mix professional with private topics, two chapters that should stay separate, but somehow that felt insignificant now.

"Jack, you know we can't do this because of regulations unless one of us quits the service. And as long as we've cleared everything up, neither of us can really quit the service," Sam objected weakly.

"I think you're wrong. I have spoken with Helia. She has had very similar problems among her team as you know. That's why she once asked the Joint Chiefs via the SGC. She wanted to know how such situations were handled by the American military. And as it looks, the President could grant an exemption."

"Only with the difference that we don't have a President at the moment, we only have a government council," the woman deadpanned.

Still she moved closer to lean her head against his shoulder for a moment, appreciating the feeling of his arms around her.

"What's the matter, Sam? Don't you want to get married anymore?" he asked gently, suddenly sounding a bit hurt.

"It's not that Jack, far from it, but don't you think we should try to solve the more pressing problems first? Like surviving for example? Because I would very much like to spend the rest of a long life with you instead of dying on a spaceship!"

Her quip made him smile a little as he pressed a kiss to her hair.

"You are probably right. But honestly, I want to marry you as soon as possible, Sam. We've been waiting more than long enough for us to finally be an official couple."

At that moment they heard the surprised voice of Dr. Zelenka calling from the control room next door. "General, we have intruders on board. There are several unidentified ships landed between the pier and the central tower. A hitherto unknown group of people are trying to gain access to the Central Tower."

"How could that be possible? Has the shield been checked Sam?" asked a visibly troubled Jack O'Neill.

"I don't know, Sir, the shield's been checked and it's working perfectly within the set parameters. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to get through," Carter replied.

Both then went to Dr. Zelenka, who looked up as O'Neill approached him with Carter.

"Report!" ordered the General.

"General, there are about 20 individuals down at the fifth door of the Central Tower. How they got through the shield with their total of 5 spaceships is unclear. There were no malfunctions or other impairments." reported Dr. Zelenka.

"All right, notify nearby units, I'm on my way with backup."

15 minutes later O'Neill had taken up his position together with Teal'c and some others. In a moment the unknown would enter the central space on this level. And then they would be in a trap because they would be without cover and could be fired at from different directions at the same time.

The intruders looked a little strange to O'Neill some of them looked as if they were refugees. But that didn't matter for now. What did matter, was that there several huge robots at the flanks of the group. Hopefully they wouldn't last long in a firefight otherwise they would be in a world of hurt.

O'Neill shouted, "Freeze!"

At the same time he and all the other soldiers activated their laser pointers on their rifles. There was no one among the unknown who was not detected by at least one red laser beam.

That moment, before anyone could do anything, it suddenly became very bright in the room and a strange kind of ball appeared. As the ball slowly floated to the ground, it grew bigger and even brighter. Finally the ball had disappeared again, but a man stood in the middle of the room. The whole thing hadn't even lasted a minute and had confused the intruders in particular.

"Please, you're all friends here, you don't need your guns," said the stranger. Since O'Neill suspected that he was dealing with an Ascended, he ordered the weapons to be secured.

"Please trust me Admiral Adama, General O'Neill and the others will help you, so please put your guns down," said the stranger once more.

"And why would we want to help them?" asked O'Neill, who already knew what the answer to his question would be.

"General O'Neill, have a nice day to you too, and you can believe me, once you've heard the full story of Admiral Adama and his people, you'll want to help them. By the way, I'm supposed to greet you from Oma," replied the stranger.

"Okay, so this is another story where we have no other choice?" asked a slightly reluctant General who knew perfectly well that it would be no use anyway to debate with this Ascended.

"General, I would suggest we move the conversation to your large meeting room upstairs and you always have a choice even in this case," replied the Ascended.

Before they could do anything else, a middle-aged woman came up and asked, "Who are you, what are you?"

The unknown turned to her and said, "President Roslin, my name is Janus and I am an Ascended. I know that doesn't mean anything to you at the moment. So let us all go upstairs peacefully then I will inform you all about everything that is going on and why I am here."


End file.
